Donut Press Kit - Alice Donut · searing guitar lines, ... well chosen licks and riffs that can hit hard, thrash and burn, or ... Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 4

Formed in 1986 in New York City, Alice Donut was quicklysigned by Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label where itreleased 7 albums and numerous singles. Furious touringacross the States, Europe and Japan cemented the band witha large cult-like underground following.

A band for the sweaty freaks, hyper-literate fringe dwellers,paranoid misanthropes and worshipers of the 100-watt mosh,Alice Donut is impossible to categorize within a genre.Mixing garage, folk, punk, metal, Kurt Weill, noise, glam &danzon with shamelessly inappropriate harmonies, the musicis a disorienting hybrid of chaos and hooks. Ugly to bombas-tic to melodramatic to banjo-picking to spastic to Sabbath ona trombone. The lyrics veer between heartfelt little storiesabout twisted losers to self indulgent delusions of grandeur.

Alice Donut has made a career of making the wrong musicat the wrong time for the wrong people and somehowmaking it, oddly, right. In 1996, Alice Donut played their1000th show to a packed house in London, then went,exhausted, back to NYC and called it quits.

In 2003, the band has re-emerged re-energized and willsoon release a new album, Three Sisters, on HowlerRecords.

Alice Donut is simply one of the best bands inthese here United States.

- Philadelphia City Paper

Alice Donut can’t be pigeonholed. Blending influencesas varied as Led Zeppelin, The Dead Kennedys andFrank Zappa they manage to sound like six differentstyles of hard rock, and nothing you’ve heard before –all at the same time.

- Punk Crossover

Brainy, subversive pop-core from NewYork. Rhythmic guitar layers and desperatewhooping vocals invoke a lyrical world ofbutchered bodies, nuns straddling Gatlingguns, lustful mutant Chihuahua-like beastsand other timely images of fascist doom.You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wanna killthe president.

- Giron, Spin Magazine

Alice Donut barge carelessly through taboos to apply their fearsome intelligence to some ofthe most vital topics on earth – sex, death religion, the apocalypse and set their mutant musingsto some of the most beautifully dirty pop music you’ll hear anywhere.

- Melody Maker

One of the best indie bandsin the land.

- Pandemonium

[email protected]

Howler Records31 Union Square West Suite 9A

New York, NY 10003212.741.8831

www.howlerrecords.comattn: Dave Giffen

[email protected]

Ida S. LangsamISL Public Relations

333 W 52nd Street 9th FloorNew York, NY 10019

Ph 212 541-7595Fax 212 541-0008

[email protected]

CONTACT INFORMATION

Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 2

Alice Donut was a singularly impressive, hard-rocking, arty, punky combo with several solid (and a coupleof legendary) albums under their belts when they called it quits in 1996. Their sound was characterized bysearing guitar lines, a roiling bottom-end and the high, quavering, eerie warble of lead singer TomasAntona. Oh, and an occasional trombone. They dealt in the darker side of the American dream with humorand anger; in other words, they did everything Marilyn Manson did, except they a) started doing it in1987, and b) they didn’t suck. Thankfully, they have decided to continue not sucking in the year 2003.

- Splendid, September 2003

Three Sisters

There’s nothing remotely subdued about Pure Acid Park, a daffily psychedelic set thatincorporates everything from banjo and washboard to remarkably ugly spuzz-guitar into dour millennialistrants like “Dreaming in Cuban” (which allows Antona to revisit his heritage) and “Shining Path.” Theband’s most focused and affecting release, Pure Acid Park crystallizes its maverick raving and boundary-pushing instrumentation with a thoroughness that poseurs like Perry Farrell could never imagine.

- David Sprague, Trouser Press

Alice Donut have recorded what will probably be considered their Dark Side of the Moon/White Album

masterpiece [The Untidy Suicides of Your Degenerate Children].And to tell the truth, it almost works for the band . . . Its good to see intelligent groups play unintelligiblemusic. Listen to “Everybody Is On Sale”, and they will throw it back to you because “you only maintainyour erections by soiling the ones you possess.” The band is definitely out to lunch, but there is a ratherappealing (gulp!) quality to them.

- Chris Fiato, Indie File

If a band’s greatness is judged by their live performances, then slide this slab of mocha chocolate-chip

cheesecake [Dry Humping the Cash Cow] down to Alice Donut’s side of the table.This riotous live recording demonstrates the group’s tendency to warp all convention with their bizarroassortment of grooves and vocalist Sissi’s aura of demented invincibility. “Hose” and “Helter Skelter” aresheer inspiration, while “Dead River” splatters the listener with muddy, psychedelic blues.

- Paul, Mag Pie Weekly

In a lot of ways, the Donuts fulfill the rock’n’roll ideal,charged with energy, condemning convention, pointed towardsthe ultimate goal of exposing their album and their sound to as

many people as possible.- Alternative PressSelected Press

Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 3

With the release of the band’s fourth LP, Revenge Fantasies of the Impotent,Alice Donut has earned the right to be compared with powerhouse bands like The Buzzcocks, Fugazi, andthe Pixies… Alice Donut has managed to build a following of extremely devoted fans in rock’s under-ground, throughout the U.S. and Europe . . . Alice Donut continues to be a bearer for a brand of music theindustry has been determined to kill off for years: guys playing guitars with something more to sing aboutthan girls, cars and booze. Alice Donut addresses reality more than most rock music today, yet at the sametime gets beyond the preachiness of many of today’s rock icons. They make music the listening and think-ing experience it should be.

- Punk Crossover

These men’s minds are not just sick, they are on the critical list – and that’s why Mule is such a gloriousrecord. Alice Donut barge carelessly through taboos to apply their fearsome intelligence to some of the mostvital topics on earth – sex, death religion, the apocalypse – and set their mutant musings to some of the mostbeautifully dirty pop music you’ll hear anywhere. And yeah, I do mean pop music. Alice Donut live in thetwilight zone of hardcore, and wrench more than enough noise out of their guitars to make themselves wel-come there, but the New York quintet throw in some sturdy melodies, clever song constructions, and evenelegant harmonies along with all their twisted thoughts... Mule is devastating, visionary stuff.

- Dave Jennings, Melody Maker

Rock Album of the Week: Alice Donut, Bucketfulls of Sickness andHorror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life. Among the millionsof suburban males who grew up with too much Led Zeppelin during their formative years, the members ofAlice Donut have found a constructive outlet by making music. The band’s songs combine the Zeppelinlurch and crunch with bratty, smart-alecky, occasionally foul-mouthed but usually right-thinking lyrics,sung in an urgent whine by Tomas Antona. The songs ricochet from self-loathing to bitter amusement toself-righteous annoyance (as in “Testosterone Gone Wild”), as they bash and squall to battle a temptingcomplacency.

- John Pareles, The New York Times

Alice Donut comes fresh off the streets of NYC’s Lower East Side to rock the underground. They do sowith a solidly grounded rhythm section and a twin guitar attack that move together, lashing out high-volt-age garage-charged melodies and short, well chosen licks and riffs that can hit hard, thrash and burn, orkick up a twangy/bluesy SoCal rootsy feel. The personality of the band, however, lies in their oft-sharp, oft-non sequiter, oft-critical, oft-comical, oft-scuzzy, oft-graphically twisted lyrics, as delivered by TomasAntona (who looked like a homeless Smurf at a recent gig). At times Tomas just punkishly blurts andspews his words, at others he grunts, speaks and just plain sings ‘em, but he’s most effective when heclimbs into the high register and hits the nasal shrill tones that Johnny Rotten or Geddy Lee couldn’t pierceif they cut their noses off. Wondering what he sings about? Howzabout “Mason Reese” (the Underwooddeviled ham kid), “Green Pea Soup” (about Linda Blair), “World Profit” (an attack on the corporate andTVangelical worlds), “Tipper Gore” (easy prey, and probably why Jello signed these guys to his label), acover of Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman,” and the S&M inspired “Bedpost,” which contains the couplet“She might be the Marquis de Sade/But when she hits me I see God.” Bring your own milk.

- C.M.J.

Donut Comes Alive

Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 4

Noise annoys: Loud music for the massesBy Mark Ginsburg

The Legendary Alice DonutWhen I referred to July as “Alternative Tentacles Month” inmy last column, apparently I was a little short of the mark. Itlooks like we’re smack dab in the middle of AlternativeTentacles Summer. The label has mounted one of the mostamazing underground rock tours in recent history. Four classicbands from the AT roster are back on the road; Victim’sFamily, Ultra Bide, Buzzkill and (dramatic pause please) thelegendary Alice Donut. Yes, boys and girls, Alice Donut hasreunited. The folks who brought you such album titles as“Revenge Fantasies of the Impotent”, “Bucketfulls ofSickness and Horror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life” and“The Untidy Suicides of Your Degenerate Children” are back.

Vocalist Tom Antona’s bizarre high-pitched wail has alwaysbeen a perfect match to his lyrics, which tend to wander intoplaces most people would avoid. On the band’s 1988Alternative Tentacles debut, “Donut Comes Alive”, Antonaoffers up the twisted anthem “American Lips”, in which hedeclares “I’ve got a Jackson Pollack tattoo on my ass” and thenproceeds to rhyme this with “video priests screaming out highmass.” Now there’s a combination of images. Later in the tunehe makes reference to Ronald Reagan’s bout with colo-rectalcancer, which somehow leads naturally to the phrase “Bloodyfrench fries at my McDonald’s McMassacre”.

The rest of the lineup had an equally unusual approach, playingin a manner that was anything but ordinary. The guitar work ofMichael Jung and David Giffen (who returns to the band for thistour) had an unsettling ring to it. Less about lead and rhythm andmore about creating two strange lines that bounced off eachother, the result was a mix of punk, 70s rock and somethingvery, very creepy. Toss in the thundering drums of StephenMoses and the sinister bass of Sissi Schulmeister (truly one ofthe great names in musical history), and what you have is thesound that is so far into left field it is nearly out of the park.

In the distant annals of Philadelphia rock ‘n’ roll history (whoknows when, my memory clouds), I had the good fortune tosee Alice Donut at the Trocadero, playing a pro-choice benefit,alongside such incredible acts as Pink Slip Daddy, KingMissile and the Lunachicks. Despite such competition, Donutmanaged to be the most mind-blowing band on the bill. Allfive members surged forward and then backward with eachsong, pulsing like a single, gelatinous mass. Oh yes, and theyrocked too.

Unfortunately, my lengthy tirade on the glories of Donut hasleft me little space to detail the many lovely aspects of Victim’sFamily, Buzzkill and Ultra Bide. Suffice it to say, each bandhas its own personal sickness, a perfect compliment to the boysfrom Donut. We’re talking big bass, rock ‘n’ roll, experimental,spleen-splattering, fun as freakin’ hell music with plenty ofsocial conscience and a healthy, heaving helping of sarcasticwit. Yes, if you squashed all three acts together, that is whatyou would get.

Stop by and be part of this trembling mound of goodness, onSunday, August 10th at the Khyber, 56 S. 2nd Street. Fordetails, call the club at 215-238-5888.

Recent Press and Interviews

Splendid > Features > Alice Donut

Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 5

article by brett mccallon. photos by steve nelson.

Donut comes alive againGiven the length of time that the independent rock scene has existed,the hipster cognoscenti probably has three discrete, age-group-basedreactions to the fact that Alice Donut has gotten back together:

1. I Saw The Clash Before Their First Album Was Released: Jesus, I’mold enough that bands I was too old to get into in the first place havehad their careers, broken up, and fucking re-formed? I need a drink.

2. I Spent My High School Years Obsessed With The Pixies: AliceDonut got back together? And they’re playing at CBGB’s? Andthey’re releasing an excellent new album? Sweet! Let’s have a drink.

3. I Think Way Too Many Of This Year’s Bands Are Ripping Off OriginalsLike The Strokes: Who’s getting back to what now? Is Fab Morettigoing to the show? I wish I was old enough to drink.

As we both fall solidly into demographic number two, we (or at leastBrett) nearly wet ourselves when, innocently cruising through theAlternative Tentacles website, we came upon an announcement that,yes, Alice Donut had gotten back together, and yes, they would beplaying their first of three reunion shows at CBGB. We leapt at thechance to sit down and catch up with three of New York’s most inter-esting (and oddest) sons, and one daughter.

For those of you in groups one and three, Alice Donut was a singular-ly impressive, hard-rocking, arty, punky combo with several solid (anda couple of legendary) albums under their belts when they called itquits in 1996. Their sound was characterized by searing guitar lines, aroiling bottom-end and the high, quavering, eerie warble of lead singerTomas Antona. Oh, and an occasional trombone. They dealt in thedarker side of the American dream with humor and anger; in otherwords, they did everything Marilyn Manson did, except they a) starteddoing it in 1987, and b) they didn’t suck.

Thankfully, they have decided to continue not sucking in the year 2003— self-releasing an album, playing a few dates, and getting back intothe whole music scene on their own terms, a bit greyer and wiser butwith no less fire. During a break from sound check at the first CBGB’sshow, Tomas Antona filled us in on a little band history, both recent andless so. Later, bassist Sissi Schulmeister, guitarist Michael Jung and

drummer Steve Moses filled in everything he missed.

· · · · · · ·Splendid: What was the impetus for a reunion now?

Tomas Antona: Sissi, Michael and Steve had been playing for a longtime. Starting about two years after we broke up, they started playingand they kept asking me every now and then. And I realized I missedit. I guess we all did. It’s also a great excuse to get together. So whenwe first started (again), we kind of eased into it. It’s a great way to makean album every year and do a few shows, and to do it for the right rea-sons.

Splendid: So you were the one they had to convince?

Tomas Antona: Yeah.

Splendid: Do you all still live in New York?

Tomas Antona: We all live here, except Dave (Giffen), who will bedoing an encore with us, and Richard Marshall. Dave was inKazakhstan — he had this weird job — and Richard is in SanFrancisco, so they would be in as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if theywere in some capacity later. It’s fun to get together and it’s fun to do it.It’s meaningful to get together and come up with something.

Splendid: So this is just the amount of time it took to come together?There is no specific rationale for a reunion now?

Tomas Antona: No. There is no rationale. We just started playing and itclicked and it’s nice. When you’re constantly touring you sometimes getinvolved with a lot of bullshit and now we work on making the music. And

there’s the website, it’s a really cool thing. So now we can just kind of tar-get where we want to play. And the people on the website, it’s been kindof an eye opener, ‘cause its not like they want to hear Mule again or Untidyagain, or whatever; the people are actually very cool — they want to besurprised. And the people are funny, bizarre, and it’s a really cool thing.And it’s a smarter way to tour, because we’re not going to tour like we usedto.

Splendid: Where you just go everywhere?

Tomas Antona: Right. We’ve got no problems just going to likeEdinburgh for a weekend play two shows and come back. So we go towhere they are rather than everywhere.

Splendid: This leads to the next logical question — why break up inthe first place? Was it just because of the stress of constant touring?

Tomas Antona: It’s not a good reason to break up, but I was just sickof it. I was tired of it. Maybe it was touring too much. I kind of firedmyself after the last tour because I was a dick during the last tour andI needed to be stopped.

Splendid: Was that a tough meeting that you had with yourself, whenyou had to let yourself go?

Tomas Antona: It was.

Splendid: Were there tears?

Tomas Antona: There weretears, you know, I had to getsecurity to drag me away fromthe desk.

Splendid: That’s the worst partreally. It sounds very Fight Club.

Tomas Antona: It was kind ofquick.

Splendid: What came first, theplans to play the live shows orthe album?

Tomas Antona: The album. We had an idea for the next three albums,to do three albums at the same time. It was a really cool way to get intoit because, we have this weirdness, this very weirdness, and then thestraight one. The one that we’re putting out now is the straight one.Well, straight for us. It was a good way to organize the kind of thingsthat we wanted to do and how to ease into it, without worrying aboutother things. So that’s how we started. And then we finished the albumand we’re happy about it. If Steve hadn’t called Louise (from CBGB) afew months ago, we wouldn’t have even set this as a deadline — wewould have kept putting it off — but it was good that he did. Then wecalled Victim’s (Family) and (Ultra) Bide and got them to come over.

Splendid: Is anyone married, or do any of you have kids?

Tomas Antona: Sissi and I. That’s a big reason why we’re not going totour. We have an eleven month old.

Splendid: So that obligation comes first.

Tomas Antona: We probably wouldn’t be touring a lot, but that, espe-cially. We’ll do, like, a week here and a week there, bring her, bring ababysitter.

Splendid: The new album is available on-line and at a few recordstores in Brooklyn, but there hasn’t been a huge amount of press.

Tomas Antona: (laughing) No press.

Splendid: Is it officially “out” now?

Tomas Antona: It’s basically out now. We just don’t have our shittogether yet.

Splendid: I wasn’t really looking for it. I knew that you guys were play-ing but I didn’t know that there was an album until I talked to Mike.

Tomas Antona: Yeah, we’ve been kind of busy. Even the website’s notupdated, we should probably have that on the front. We don’t evenhave the Baltimore and Philadelphia shows up. Dave actually has alabel and we might put it out properly. At some point during the nextcouple of months we’re going to let everybody know. We just gotta getour shit together.

Splendid: Why not just put it out on Alternative Tentacles again?

Tomas Antona: That’s a good question. One reason, you know — wetalked to (Jello) Biafra, andeverything is cool, we have noproblems, it’s just that we’retrying to keep it just us. Part ofthe bullshit for breaking up wasall the little hassles of everytime you start a tour, that youhave to do this and this and thisand line things up. We were justlike, “Let’s put it out ourselvesand see how it goes.” AndBiafra was cool with it; hethinks it’s absurd, and that we’llcome back. He might be right.Maybe we’ll do the next onewith him or we’ll do singles withhim. But then Dave has arecord label.

Splendid: What’s it called?

Tomas Antona: Howler. So there might be something with Dave’slabel. Basically we’re just trying to keep things within us — our time-line, our schedule, and we’re not worried about...

Splendid: Expectations?

Tomas Antona: Yeah, we don’t care about... like, okay, the albumcomes out; now you have to tour here, here, here and here. We’re justgonna check this out, get press as it comes, and see what happens.It’s not the smartest way, but it’s the smartest way for us.

Splendid: So you’re not looking at this as a...cash cow?

Tomas Antona: (Laughs) No.

Splendid: No one is looking to do this as a full time thing, again?

Tomas Antona: No, I don’t think so. We’re not looking to do it as a full-time thing, but we’re not looking at it as a hobby. It is important to us,and maybe because it is important to us, we have to stick with what isimportant. That’s making the music every year, and playing to peoplewho want to hear us, and that’s it. We’d love it to sell well. Hopefullywe’ll get our shit together and do the press correctly. We don’t want it

Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 6

to languish. Doing it on the web, it’s not like it’s released and you havea month. You don’t sell consistently over a year. We usually sold every-thing in the first month, then we go to Europe and have that push andthat’s when everything gets sold. The way I look at it is there is no rea-son we can’t do it and have it out for a couple of months and when wehave time do a big media thing, and then play some shows and thenlaunch the album, just keep it going until we have the next one.

Splendid: That’s really interesting, because you hear bands get backtogether and sometimes they do one shot, sometimes they do it as thefull-time thing with a full push, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of some-body taking it like this. Is there any band that you had modeled thisbehavior after? When I think about what you just said, it makes a lot ofsense, but I’ve never heard of a band getting back together, saying,“This is what we didn’t like about what we were doing before, this ishow we’re going to avoid it,” and moving in the direction you were justtalking about. It’s a really neat idea.

Tomas Antona: If we sell even half of what we used to sell, we’d bemore than happy. We just know who we are and we know what we’renot, which is probably more important. So we don’t have that kind ofbullshit to worry about, so it’s easier to do it like this.

Splendid: It has to be the lowest-key reunion I have ever heard of, fora band that has a considerableaudience.

Tomas Antona: Yeah, I guessso, but (the show) is sold out.

Splendid: It’s impressive that itsold out when you really had tolook for it, without expecting itto be there.

Tomas Antona: I don’t know ifwe expected it to be like this. Weknew a lot of people were goingto come because of the website,and they were coming from allover. And it just fell into place.

Splendid: You mention the web-site a lot. I was up on the message board the other day and I noticedthat all of the band members get on there pretty frequently; is that partof the reason that everything came back — the influence of the fans?

Tomas Antona: I think so. The guy who put up the site, this guy DougMoeller who had alicedonut.com, put up this web board and all thesepeople started talking. It was interesting to see what they were talkingabout. They were swapping shows and stuff. Then we had an idea thatwe were going to put all of our back catalog on (the site), because wethink that people who like us already own one or two albums, so thedifficult-to-get stuff people can get it and the cool people will buy morestuff. So we put everything up, and this web board is the coolest thing.We lost three months of it recently. It crashed, that’s why you see it gofrom August to May.

Splendid: People lost their stars...

Tomas Antona: People lost their stars. There was this whole absurdi-ty with stars and different levels. It’s funny; there was this one kid fromFrance who was like (doing a hipster French accent), “So, are you guystoo fat and old to show your new pictures?” And we were like, “Yes.”So I started putting up Photoshop pictures of my head on a really fatbody, then one of Sissi, one of Steve. Steve likes to golf so I put oneof him like golfing, and then they (the fans) started putting up pictures

of us. They’d take my head and put it on another enormous body andit was pretty funny. So yeah, we're on it, once a week.

Splendid: So was that sort of challenging you? Was it that that led youinto the idea of getting back together?

Tomas Antona: No, it just happened at the same time. It was reallystrange, because the web board was up for a month or two without usknowing, and then we started playing, and it all just happened at thesame time. But we're on it all of the time.

Exit Tomas Antona, enter Sissi Schulmeister.

Splendid: The new album (Three Sisters) almost sounds like you neverbroke up, and this was just the next album you released. When you start-ed out, was there any temptation to go a completely different directionthan you had been in before? You already did sort of "out there" stuff...

Sissi Schulmeister: Actually, the first plan was to make three albumscalled Three Sisters, but each would have been one album and thiswas like the straight-forward one. We might still do the other ones too.We'll see. The other ones might be more kind of "out there" and havemore samples involved. This was gonna be the straight-forward one, a

kind of back to the roots sort ofthing. We didn't use too manydifferent instruments like we didwith Pure Acid Park. It wasstraightforward bass, guitar,drums, vocals and that wasbasically it.

Splendid: Where and whenwere the songs written? Wereany of them old songs that werenever recorded or was it mostlyall new stuff?

Sissi Schulmeister: Some stuffMichael had, that he cut in hisbasement, and we just kind ofreworked it. And Tom and mehad some stuff that we had

been working on. We all own computers, we all have Macs, we all kindof record at home, Mike has the most (equipment). We play the stuffwe like the best for each other and then we start from there. Some ofthe stuff just came while we were playing, like one song called "Up isDown" -- it was just kind of instant. It was just there all of a sudden,but there are different processes for different songs. None of this wasold Donut stuff.

Splendid: So it hadn't been sitting around?

Sissi Schulmeister: Maybe Mike might have had some stuff, but I kindof doubt it.

Enter Michael Jung and Steve Moses.

Splendid: The recording of this album, putting it together, writing it --Sissi was just saying that you had a bunch of material and y'all start-ed picking stuff out and just kind of worked from there.

Michael Jung: Basically it became the old way of working.

Sissi Schulmeister: We started with an idea and started working it alltogether until everybody was happy.

Alice Donut Press Kit 12/03 • 7

Michael Jung: Once there was a cool idea, they just kind of go off ontheir own and that becomes a song.

Splendid: So that's the way you've always put songs together?

Michael Jung: Mostly.

Sissi Schulmeister: Mostly.

Steve Moses: Yeah, we usually start with a guitar riff and we developit, and then change it and throw it away and then pick it up again. Thenwe play it backwards and decide that we like it backwards and then weput in a Barre F7.

Sissi Schulmeister: And a break.

Splendid: And then the trombone?

Steve Moses: No, that comes later.

Splendid: We were listening to Untidy Suicides the other day andwhatever else we could get off of Kazaa, and we were both struck byhow modern and not dated all that stuff sounds. To what do you attrib-ute the ability of the music toage well?

Michael Jung: That's easy. Wenever tried to follow a trend. Sowe never sounded like 1995,because we weren't trying toplay like other people in 1995.You know just do what we feellike doing. Of course we lis-tened to bands like Victim'sFamily, and there are bands welike, so there are definitely influ-ences. We're not completelyout in left field. You know, wejust play what we like.

Sissi Schulmeister: We don'twatch MTV, basically.

Michael Jung: And since we have great taste...

Splendid: You guys have all kept in touch since the break up?

Steve Moses: Well, we broke up and then kind of took a break. We allstayed in touch and then maybe two years later the three of us startedplaying. Michael had a bunch of ideas and we realized we just enjoyedplaying. After a while we figured we'd look for a singer, so we tried dif-ferent singers.

Sissi Schulmeister: A lot of them.

Steve Moses: Which is pretty wild, and the videotape is pretty fun towatch. None of the singers really worked out. We liked some, but theygot institutionalized. None of them really worked out. One personworked out, our friend Denise worked out, but then it just kind of fiz-zled. Then we decided to do just instrumentals. Then Tom heard whatwe were doing. Sissi and Tom, they've been together longer than weeven know. Since the Blind Melon tour. Then Tom decided he wantedto do it again and Alice Donut is back together. This is two years ago.For the last two years we've been mostly trying to find times torehearse, because we were all busy with life. Then, finally, we foundtime. Michael got together all of the gear to record the record.

Splendid: I know that you mixed it at your (Michael's) house.

Steve Moses: We recorded it at his house.

Sissi Schulmeister: We all have computers, Macintoshes, and we allhave little hard drives...

Steve Moses: Plug Macintoshes.

Sissi Schulmeister: ...to take the files back and forth. Mostly wewould sit at Michael's and listen to all the stuff and mix it.

Steve Moses: We put together ideas for songs and Michael wouldemail them to us.

Sissi Schulmeister: We'd upload it to a server and then download itand see what we like. We each did a lot of computer work.

Splendid: So to some extent, the process has moved into the digitalage.

Michael Jung: Only because it's affordable. Well, not only...

Splendid: It's got to makescheduling band time easier,because it has to be more com-plicated now than it was before.

Michael Jung: It makes it possi-ble. We spent basically twoyears making the album, where-as if we had done it in the studio,it would have taken a lot lesstime, because we were learningthe process at the same time.

Splendid: So one would assumethat another album would gomore quickly.

Sissi Schulmeister: There were a lot of breaks we had.

Splendid: We covered a lot with Tom already.

Steve Moses: Well he's a liar.

Sissi Schulmeister: We've gotta double-check.

Splendid: We were thinking the same thing. In the time that youweren't playing together, were you involved in other bands?

Steve Moses: I was playing with Rasputina. I toured with them for ayear, or a year and a half.

Splendid: Has music ever not been your full time job?

Steve Moses: Has it ever been my full time? I've been doing musiccontinually and I have been doing a solo thing that I call Drumbone thatI do every once in a while. I did it here, actually (CBGB's Gallery). It'sdrums and trombone together with some electronics; solo wank. AndI played with Stuffy Schmidt, Middle Finger, Mary Lowry. Some ofthings I may want to forget, but...

Michael Jung: I play in a rhythm section with a few guys from GrahamParker's band. Their drummer plays with the Mekons, the bass player

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has played with a lot of people. He was a Kink for a day actually. Heplayed a lot with Ray Davies, and actually played a gig with the Kinks,as a Kink.

Splendid: You know, Ray Davies could probably make a lot of moneyhaving a service where you could be a Kink for a day.

Michael Jung: Yeah, that would be cool. Like the Rock and RollFantasy Camp. I guess you'd need to have a little talent to get awaywith it.

Splendid: You've had a lot ofresponse for the small numberof shows that you're playing,and now the album is out on thewebsite. Tom mentioned some-thing about maybe putting it outon a label.

Steve Moses: He's lying.

Splendid: He was talking aboutfeeling it out and seeing howthings are going to go. I have tosay that it's hard to be awarethat the album is out.

Michael Jung: Yeah, how wouldyou know?

Splendid: I was able to find out you were having the shows, but upuntil I actually asked you (Michael), I didn't know. I assumed theremight be.

Michael Jung: That's understandable. We've never told anyone.

Splendid: The surprise album.

Michael Jung: Over the years that we've been broken up, we've hadpeople contact us and we put them on a mailing list, and then last yearwe developed alicedonut.com to find out what's going on. All thesepeople were interested, so they're the people who know. When people

ask, we tell them, as opposed to us telling everybody. The only peoplewho know are the people who go to alicedonut.com right now. We'retrying to get the press to help. You guys found out.

Steve Moses: A fan did this message board and we became aware ofthis message board. I don't know when you became aware of the mes-sage board...

Splendid: Tom said you found out about the message board after youhad been playing together, which is nice serendipity.

Michael Jung: This fan namedDoug owned alicedonut.com sowe knew about it. He was like,"I'm a fan. If you want alice-donut.com back you can haveit. If you want, I'll help you setup the website." So he helpedus set it up and runs the mes-sage board. He'll be heretonight.

Steve Moses: A lot of peopleare flying in for tonight.

Sissi Schulmeister: Weweren't sure we were going tohave it ready. We were busywith so many other things like

production that we couldn't publicize it.

Splendid: The Alternative Tentacles website has information about theshow...

Michael Jung: Oh, they're very cool.

Splendid: But you've decided not to...

Michael Jung: We're not releasing it with AT.

Splendid: So it's on us to get the word out.

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